Blithe Spirit starring Angela Lansbury

from 01/03/2014 to 07/06/2014

Event: Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward

Location: Gielgud Theatre, W1

Angela Lansbury takes the starring role in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, reprising a role she played in the hit Broadway production of the play in 2009. It is her first West End role in nearly 40 years.

Lansbury plays the eccentric clairvoyant Madame Arcati, who is invited to perform a séance at a novelist’s house, as research for his latest novel. It is a move that backfires when she accidently summons up the ghost of the novelist’s first wife, causing him all kinds of problems.

The play is directed by Michael Blakemore, who also directed the New York production. The Australian-born Blakemore has had a long career in theatre, including being associate director of the National Theatre, directing Laurence Olivier in Long Day’s Journey into Night and a long association with the playwright Michael Frayn directing many of his plays, inlcuding Copenhagen and Democracy.

The 88-year-old Lansbury is best known for her Jessica Fletcher role in the long-running television show, Murder, She Wrote.

Blithe Spirit is on at the Gielgud Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, Monday to Saturday from 1st March to 7th June 2014 with matinee performances on Wednesdays & Saturdays.